Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: August 22, 2017
Guest: Raul Grijalva, Josh Barro, Michelle Goldberg, Ravin Gandhi, Erin Gloria Ryan, Sam Seder
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: We will see him in Phoenix if Mr. Trump`s noble words of last night will survive even the coming of the Arizona sundown. And that`s HARDBALL for now, thanks for being with us. "ALL IN" with Chris Hayes starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You look at both sides, I think there`s blame on both sides.
HAYES: Still under the shadow of Charlottesville, Donald Trump takes his campaign road show to Phoenix.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the timing of the rally is really, really bad.
HAYES: Tonight the protests in the streets and why the President`s war with his own party just got much, much uglier.
TRUMP: I said Mitch, get to work and let`s get it done.
HAYES: Then, new reporting that Trump dossier author has met with and is cooperating with the FBI.
TRUMP: Does anyone really believe that story?
HAYES: And why the Treasury Secretary`s wife is apologizing for a shocking Instagram rant.
TRUMP: In those particular positions, I just don`t want a poor person. Does that make sense?
HAYES: When ALL IN starts now.
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HAYES: Good evening from New York, I`m Chris Hayes. Tonight the President of the United States returns the friendly confines of the Phoenix, Arizona Convention Center for another campaign rally in front of his most fervent supporters. The event of course comes exactly one week since the disastrous off script press conference in which the President of the United States defended white nationalist who rallied in Charlottesville leading the clashes from the streets and the murder of a counter protester. The President tried belatedly to correct course calling for unity last night in a scripted speech on Afghanistan delivered with the aid of a teleprompter.
But tonight in front of a crowd of fans, all bets are off. The rally is set to begin an hour from now, 10:00 p.m. local time but tensions are running already running high on the streets of phoenix where temperatures hit 107 degrees today. The supporters and opponents of the President demonstrating outside the Convention Center where he`s due to speak. Besides from a street closures in Downtown Phoenix and numerous businesses offices, even schools shut down today in advance of the president`s visit which local officials had sought to avoid. The City`s Democratic Mayor Greg Stanton plead with the President not to come to Phoenix in an Op-Ed to the Washington Post writing, "America is hurting and it is hurting largely because Trump has doused racial tensions with gasoline. With his plan to visit to Phoenix on Tuesday, I fear the President may be looking to light a match."
The President`s visit to Phoenix also comes against the backdrop of what now appears to be an all out civil war with the Republican Party with the President on one side and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the other according to the New York Times. What was once an uneasy governing alliance has curdled into a feud of mutual resentment and sometimes outright hostility. Culminating in a phone early this month that quickly devolved into a profane shouting match. The Times reports that McConnell has news about whether Mr. Trump will be in a position to lead the Republican Party into next year`s election and beyond.
The front lines of that battle are right there in Arizona, site of the President`s rally tonight. That`s where Republican Senator Jeff Flake is up for re-election next year and ally of McConnell, Flake has become one of the President`s most outspoken critics in the GOP prompting the President to lash out at him on Twitter. "Great to see that Dr. Kelli Ward is running against Flake, Jeff Flake who is weak on borders, crime and a nonfactor in Senate. He`s toxic." Ward who lost the primary challenge against John McCain this 2016 said she`d welcome the President`s support.
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KELLI WARD, FORMER UNITED STATES SENATOR: It was just amazing for the President, I mean, how many people get the President of the United States to tweet out their name especially in a positive way and also tweet out negatively against their opponent. I think the President and I see eye to eye on many issues and so I`m working toward gaining that support and endorsement.
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HAYES: Today McConnell and his allies hit back. A Super Pac run by McConnell`s former Chief of Staff releasing a devastating ad that portrays Ward as a wacky conspiracy theorist.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ward has wasted your tax dollars for a town hall on Chemtrail conspiracy theories. Chemtrail Kelli`s got her head in the clouds with crazy ideas. She hardly blamed John McCain for ISIS.
WARD: John McCain is directly responsible for the rise of ISIS.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Embarrassing behavior, dangerous ideas. No wonder Republicans rejected her just one year ago. Chemtrail Kelli, not conservative, just crazy ideas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Senator Flake and McCain are both staying away from the President`s rally tonight along with Arizona Governor Doug Ducey who is also Republican. But Kelli Ward who now leads Jeff Flake in a new poll will, of course, be in the audience. NBC`s Stephanie Gosk is in Phoenix outside the convention center where protests are already in full swing. Stephanie, what`s happening where you are?
STEPHANIE GOSK, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Chris, we`re in an area that`s been roped off as sort of free speech zone, so called free speech zone. You`ve got probably a couple thousand protesters here that continue to file in. you know, there was a life concern as you mention (INAUDIBLE) into talking to me that the mayor here has said that essentially, Trump has come here after fueling the fire of racial tension in this country and he was concerned about what would take place on the streets here in Phoenix.
But what we see on the ground right now is the police and law enforcement going to great length to keep the people that I`m with right now, these protesters, away from the Trump supporters, particularly as they made their way into the convention center about a half-hour ago. There was a lot of shouting back and forth but there really wasn`t much beyond that. I think the fears are that when this lets out, that these two groups come together and you have a more formidable situation. For the moment, it`s been pretty peaceful. Chris back to you.
HAYES: All right, Stephanie Gosk, live from Phoenix there where the President is speaking in a little bit. The President`s rally in Phoenix tonight is a homecoming of sort. He held one of his first campaign rallies at the same convention center laying out the themes that would come to define his candidacy.
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TRUMP: I don`t blame the -- I respect Mexico, I don`t blame the Mexican government. I just wish our people were smart. Like they`re really smart doing that. They`re sending them to us and we`re either putting them in jails or letting them go free, which is even worse. We have to secure our borders. We have to do something to take back our country. The silent majority is back and we`re going to take the country back.
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HAYES: Earlier today, the President visited those theme stopping near the southern border in Yuma, Arizona where he (INAUDIBLE) run by Customs and Border Patrol.
Arizona Democratic Congressman Raul Grijalva has called on the President to cancel tonight`s rally and since that hasn`t happened, he`s helping to lead the protest. He joins me now. Congressman, welcome. Why did you want the President to cancel the rally?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA (D), ARIZONA: Well, you know, first of all, this is not a Presidential visit. This is a campaign visit on his part. The previous visits to Arizona it cited -- they talked about immigrants, they talked about people of color in such a way that it created the divisions that we`ve had across this country. And on the heels of Charlottesville, coming to Arizona, teasing people about whether or not he`s going to pardon Arpaio which he now says they`re not, it`s irrelevant. I think the people that are here protesting today in Arizona are about that culmination of history.
And also, the policies of this administration that are negatively affecting many communities here. It is not only Latinos that are here, there are people that care about the environment, there are people who care about education, there are people that care about the democracy and the future of this nation. So, it`s a demonstration and giving voice to many people that have felt that this administration is marginalizing them and further in a very profound way, dividing this country.
HAYES: You`re a United States Congressman. I wonder if you would feel comfortable, you would feel safe inside that auditorium tonight?
GRIJALVA: No. I don`t think I would. You know, it`s not that -- people know what my opinions are about this administration, about this President. I`ve called him unhinged in the past and I continue to do so. And question his capacity to Lead, his moral compass and the division that he`s caused, the racial -- the race baiting and divisions of wrong color are really disruptive to social fabric of this country that we all love. And so, no, I wouldn`t feel safe. I would feel that I would be a target and today it is his -- whatever raw red meat that he throws at this campaign rally is not going to help that profound division that he has created in this country.
So, when Mayor Stanton asked him not come, many of us ask him not come, Arizona has been through a lot and this is another aggravation to the litany of bad history that we have around these issues. But the -- people are resolute. They purpose well today and committed to peaceful, not violent protests and that is good. And that`s the voice we need to hear and that`s the other face of Arizona that people are seeing across their screens.
HAYES: Do you feel that you are in a particularly divided place? I mean, the country obviously, we talk about the country`s division and we saw what happened in Charlottesville, we saw what happened in Boston, partly in response to the President`s exploitation of that division in your estimation. But you enough (INAUDIBLE) in Arizona, you mention Joe Arpaio, the President has flirted with pardoning who was an incredibly polarizing figure, who was essentially a lawless figure, who scapegoated immigrants and people of color. Do you -- do you see up close in Arizona the kind of politics that created the phenomenon that this President has been able to exploit?
GRIJALVA: Well, many of us have been not only -- we`ve been hardened by what we`ve been through the last 15 years. Arpaio, punitive anti- immigration laws, anti-women laws, anti-equality laws, tax break for the richest incorporations, tax burden passed on to regular folks, we`ve seen that. We`ve been the petri dish for the worst. And so, we have become hardened but we also become resolute. You know, Arpaio was defeated at the polls in a predominantly Republican Party and I think that there was a sentiment in Arizona that while we were at the point -- the point of the steering worse, we are also resolute and organizing well to begin to turn this whole situation around in Arizona and in the process, provided a good example and a model for what we could do nationwide.
HAYES: All right, Congressman, I wish you and everyone their tonight safety and good health. Thank you very much.
Michelle Goldberg is a Columnist at Slate and MSNBC Contributor, Josh Barro is a Senior Editor at Business Insider, they join me now. Both people have been written about this sort of internal dynamics in the Republican Party and the conservative movement. And it is fascinating, the President is going there tonight and Kelli Ward is going to be in the building. Now, Kelli Ward is in the estimation of the Republican Party of Arizona and Mitch McConnell -- it absolutely not. Like a ridiculous gad fly. The President -- there`s fears tonight that the President of the United States will essentially endorse her from the podium.
JOSH BARRO, BUSINESS INSIDER SENIOR EDITOR: Yes. I mean, this new poll that you mention shows Jeff Flake`s numbers extremely damaged with Republicans in Arizona. I don`t entirely understand what his strategy is, where he`s gone out and personally criticizing the President in such explicit terms in a way that it alienates Republicans and yet he`s allying with Republicans on these policy areas. He not (INAUDIBLE) Democrats by doing that. It seems to be setting himself up to be liked by nobody. I think though that Kelli Ward is in a way, a stocking course.
He`s noted there that she`s kind of a crazy person. She was soundly beaten by John McCain a the primary a couple -- just one year ago but there are some more serious candidates waiting in the wings there who they thought Donald Trump would get behind them, the Mercers would get behind them, might be inclined to enter that primary against Jeff Flake. So I think that what Flake is probably somewhat worried about Ward with the President`s support but is also worried about someone who doesn`t believe in (INAUDIBLE).
HAYES: Right. But it also -- I mean, to me it`s also the case that it`s - -in very -- there`s a sort of Joe Arpaio-Donald Trump wing of the Republican Party that is -- that is vibrant and profound and strong and whatever people write about all the people are just (INAUDIBLE) from Donald Trump. That remains one of the most powerful voting blocs in any Republican primary and any state.
MICHELLE GOLDBERG, THE SLATE COLUMNIST: Right. And those people were not disenchanted with Donald Trump`s response to Charlottesville, far from it. I mean, to me, one of the truly sick things about this rally, and I think it`s one of the more morally shocking things that Trump has done which is saying something is he`s basically going there in the hope of starting a riot, right? He`s basically going there in the hopes of --
HAYES: Well, why do you say that?
GOLDBERG: Because he spoke exactly a week ago, he got himself in trouble by talking about, what about the violent left, what about the violent left? Immediately upon the backlash to those comments, he goes to a place where he can be absolutely sure that there will be an angry confrontation, where there`s been angry confrontation at his rallies in the past. He doesn`t usually hold rallies in the downtowns of major cities. He holds them out in the exurbs or you know, places where he can kind of stay away from protesters. He drops this hints about pardoning this incredibly inflammatory criminal figure who if he pardons him is not just kind of a slap in the face to immigrants in Arizona, it is a sign that Donald Trump endorses and will reward lawlessness among police officers.
HAYES: The criminal conviction was the criminal contempt of a court order.
GOLDBERG: It`s just -- it`s just is so incendiary. And I think that what he wants is to basically see his comments about the quote" violent left" instantiated. So I mean, to me, that I think is the goal of this rally. It`s Donald Trump being able to say, I told you so and rallying the people who love his kind of hard of law and order respond around to meet him tighter.
HAYES: We should say that I`ve seen -- so reports are that things are peaceful. Law enforcement are very -- is doing a good job of keeping folks separated. There was real -- there`s real concern down in Downtown Phoenix. I mean, it`s a crazy thing, the President coming, present this problem not from the general security of the President, right? You got Secret Service, security cordon but from this idea that like the President coming is a -- is a kind of Molotov cocktail thrown into your town.
BARRO: And this happened several times during the Presidential campaign in Albuquerque and San Jose and in Chicago right before the Illinois Republican primary. And I think Trump understood correctly that`s this feeds directly into his narrative about law and order if he can have you know, crowds of you know, protesters waving the Mexican flag as happened in Albuquerque. You have you know, incidents of generally minor violence outside these. It creates the sense of what the President is talking about, oh, there`s violence on both sides and we need someone who will impose law and order and make our nation calm again essentially.
So, I think that he does try to manufacture that feeling and I think frankly this a scenario where the President understand that`s elite opinion is different from massive (INAUDIBLE). There`s a new poll out in Virginia related to the governor`s race there showing that you know, only about 40 percent of people say that they blame just the white supremacists for the violence in Charlottesville. About the same number say they blame both sides as the president does and a handful blames the counter protesters principally. So I think that this is an area where you can connect better with the public and say healthcare where his ideas were just massively unpopular.
HAYES: And this idea of backlash, I mean, my colleague Hugh Hewitt was talking about the fact that the support for Donald Trump among the base went up after the Charlottesville comments. Folks that he was talking to in California and he refer to the President having all the right enemies which I think is clarifying phrase. That`s really what it comes down to. He has all the right enemies and it extends past Trump. I mean, this is what`s happening in Alabama. Roy Moore, another person who has, traduce the law, who is a bigot, who`s a conspiracy theorist, who is a birther, who is all these things. He`s up by 20 points in a primary in which Donald Trump has endorsed the other guy, right? But it doesn`t matter because there`s a certain block that wants -- that things that Roy Moore has all the right enemies.
GOLDBERG: Right. And then -- I think also that agrees with Roy Moore`s vision of the world and (INAUDIBLE) about Roy Moore and you know, he --
HAYES: For years.
GOLDBERG: Yes. And you know, he wants to kind of -- you know, institute a Christian bureaucracy, that`s another story. But also -- but I think that you`ll have basically a complete breakdown of a connection between the leader of the Republican Party and the basic of the Republican Party. That elite is used to manipulating but then sort of ignoring when it suits them and they can`t do that anymore.
HAYES: Which is why -- which is why McConnell fights between McConnell and Trump which the details in that Times article are shocking. I mean, they`re screaming, they`re cursing at each other on the phone. Trump particularly upset about the Russian investigation which we`ll get to in a moment. To me, they both have good arguments, Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell. Like they`re both right about what the other is doing in terms of this dynamic.
BARRO: Right. And I think you know, this war between the Trump and his side and the (INAUDIBLE) side of the Republican party, I think is ongoing but the Trump magic doesn`t always translate very well down the ballot. So you know, I mean, John McCain beat Kelli Ward and beat a sort of similarly far right challenger six years earlier. Roy Moore has lost a number of Republican Primaries in Alabama so we`ll see how that poll holds up But Trump has this personality that allows him to get away with some of this stuff when other people try to imitate him it often doesn`t work as well.
HAYES: Yes. Although to me, one of the canaries and coal miners is that Corey Stewart race in Virginia where the sort of pro-Confederate person everyone brought off almost came in stole --
BARRO: Almost:
HAYES: Almost.
GOLDBERG: Right. But Virginia -- Alabama is a very different place than Virginia.
HAYES: Yes. All right, Michelle Goldberg and Josh Barro, thank you both. Coming up, lifestyles of the rich and government funded, how the Treasury Secretary`s wife has set up a national firestorm after an adorable day trip to visit the Gold at Fort Knox and new reporting tonight from the author of the infamous Trump-Russia -- that infamous Trump-Russia dossier has handed over his sources to the FBI. What this means to the investigation after this two-minute break.
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HAYES: We are keeping an eye on the protests in Phoenix but news tonight that former British Intelligence Agent Christopher Steele has spoken with the FBI and shared his sources for the now infamous, salacious dossier alleging ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. That`s according to a new report from NBC News. Since BuzzFeed published the original dossier, all of it and the accompany story back in January, the Trump administration has constantly argued that the document`s allegations which we must note, remain at least partially unverified, are simply not true.
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TRUMP: Does anyone really believe that story? I`m also very much of a germophobe by the way. Believe me.
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Today there was public testimony that further discredited the phony dossier.
SEAN SPICER, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The dossier that was largely the basis of this was largely discredited in the first place.
KELLYANNE CONWAY, PRESIDENT TRUMP`S COUNSELOR: The dossier is a fancy French word for a load to junk. This is a report from the internet. This is not from the intelligence community. These 35 pages right with misspellings completely unverified.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: But, here`s the thing. The more that we learned about the Trump campaign and the more we learned about the shear extent of its connections to various Russian figures such as the meeting last June between Donald Trump Jr. and other campaign staffers on one side and a Russian lawyer and a Russian lobbyist on the other. It`s not that the dossier gets less plausible. I mean, clearly, authorities seem to think the dossier merits deeper look and according to ABC News, the FBI now has list of Steele`s sources. MSNBC Contributor Naveed Jamali, former FBI Double Agent joins me on what he -- on what investigators might to with that list of sources. Are you surprised to hear that Steele turned things over to the FBI?
NAVEED JAMALI, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: No, not really. I think -- no I`m not. I think that -- but the big question Chris here is the context of the Steele dossier. So you`re right. I mean, on one silo, we have this legal question, the other is very much an intelligence question. And to sort of win the intelligence game, you don`t have to hit a legal standard. So what I mean by that is that you just played bunch of clips from Trump surrogates, and Kellyanne Conway and the like, denying the specifics in the dossier. Now, that might be true for legal standpoint but for example in the dossier, they talk about this Gubarev who`s got this libel suit against BuzzFeed. Now, whether he is actually a front for Russian cyber intelligence, for example, that might be a legal question.
But if he is, you know, from one intelligence perspective, if the Russians were actually using him, by naming him, the Russians will never use him again. So from an intelligence perspective, we have Won. So, I know it`s confusing but that is sort of the world that we`re looking at. And that`s why this evidence and intelligence, they don`t necessarily always go together cleanly.
HAYES: Right. So this is a key point because I think that the dossier is a document that I first encountered characterizations of and then I read it. And it seems to me that`s been a fairly implausible yarn, I have to say. And part of the implausibility is that the thesis of the dossier is that the Russians have cultivated Donald Trump as essentially a kind of agent, whether witting or unwitting, for a long period of time using various attempts of entanglement. That idea which seems preposterous and implausible at the beginning seems less implausible now based on what we know.
JAMALI: There certainly is -- you`re right. And so, what we`ve learned is it really lining up to the Steele dossier. Now, that`s debatable but you`re right. I mean, there obviously something here into the Russia question at large. But I want to caution, these two questions. There`s -- again, the legal question is, is there a crime and can we prove that a crime actually occurred? Now, again, from the intelligence standpoint, we don`t -- you know, counter intelligence, the goal of the counter intelligence Chris is to detect and neutralize foreign intelligence operation. You don`t -- that doesn`t necessarily mean that you`re going to bring someone to court, have a trial and have a conviction. You don`t need to do that but --
HAYES: Wait, but -- OK, but I`ve heard that before. But the problem here is that it sounds to me like that`s essentially an apology for nonsense and rumors. I mean, they`re saying, well, we don`t have -- we don`t really have the standards but maybe it`s true and if you put enough dots together it certainly looks like something. Like how do you, I guess, how do you distinguish that from essentially rumor mongering?
JAMALI: Yes, that`s an excellent point. And I think one of the interesting thing -- so we have this closed door meeting today. We had the FBI collect the sources. But there`s going to be public case in this libel suit. It will be very interesting to sort of see what comes out. Who hired Fusion GPS, we don`t even know that. So there`s a lot of questions, a lot of specific news that I think can be public here.
HAYES: Fusion GPS which is the firm, I just want to be clear here. The Fusion GPS is the firm that was -- that hired Steele to start looking into this through opposition research. For sure, Republican Primary opponents and then it could pass to people that wanted Hillary Clinton to win. We should say that Fusion GPS`s Head Glenn Simpson talked to the Judiciary Committee today for nine hours, OK, talking about what happened. Here`s Simpson`s lawyer describing what he told the Committee. Take a listen.
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JOSHUA LEVY, GLENN SIMPSON`S LAWYER: Mr. Simpson testified today before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He sat for over nine hours of questions before the Senate Judiciary Committee staff. He answered dozen if not hundreds of questions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: So what`s clear to me based on that is, whatever is -- whatever is happening, whatever they`re finding out, it remains the case that this text, this dossier which the Trump administration will sort of cone the question any opportunity they get is playing some kind of central role in all this.
JAMALI: Yes. That`s right. I mean, look, if you take the salacious nature of it out, it clearly was one of the first documents that came out that people gravitated toward to say there is something tangible. There is something real here that connects -- that shows the nexus between Trump and Russia. Now, it certainly been around for quite some time, for better part of the year I think at this point. You know, I think -- you know, there`s something here. Now, what he said to Congress, that`s a very interesting question and I hope that we`ll find out from the libel suit sort of some of the specifics about specific legal hiring.
HAYES: All right, Naveed Jamali, thank you for your time tonight.
JAMALI: Thank you.
HAYES: Ahead, a CEO who condemned President Trump after this Charlottesville tirade now faces a wave of hateful racist messages. We`ll play you one of those voicemails and he is here to respond, coming up.
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HAYES: Last night`s speech by President Trump on Afghanistan marked a triumph in some ways for the generals whose position was basically don`t leave and add troops. The generals who occupied front positions in the President`s administration reportedly employs some interesting strategies. One of the ways National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster tried to persuade Trump to recommit to the effort was by convincing him that Afghanistan was not a hopeless place. He presented Trump with a black and white snap shot from 1972 of Afghan women in miniskirts walking through Kabul to show him that western norms had existed there before and could return.
Now, presumably, this 1972 photograph showed to the President, a picture of women in the miniskirts in the good old days of Kabul. But here`s the thing, getting this President to agree to escalate American military presence in Afghanistan is basically like pushing on an open door. Now, that may not seem true in the first place because it`s true that candidate Trump criticized the war in Afghanistan repeatedly and the one in Iraq as well. But the electorate should never have gotten the idea that a Trump Presidency was going to mark a new trajectory of American noninterventionism.
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TRUMP: With ISIS, you kill about the head. You take the oil. That`s what they`re getting their money. If you bomb the hell out of it, you bomb the hell out of it.
I would bomb the (BLEEP) out of them. I would just bomb those suckers. That`s right. I`d blow up the pipes. I`d blow up the -- I`d blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left.
I`m going to bomb the (BLEEP) out of them. It`s true. I don`t care. I don`t care.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now seven months into his Presidency, it`s clear that is the Trump administration that we got. This administration has loosen the rules of combat, escalated American forces in all theaters of war that it inherited. Under Trump, the United States has dropped about 20,650 bombs through July 31st, or 80 percent of the number dropped under Obama for the entirety of 2016.
In Iraq and Syria, at least 484 civilians have been unintentionally killed by coalition strikes, according to the United States Central Command.
And according to Foreign Policy magazine, in Afghanistan, Trump`s tolerance for killing civilians has led to 67 percent more civilian casualties in his first six months than in the first half of 2016, according to the United Nations.
The Trump administration has also eased rules on drone strikes in places like Yemen and Somalia.
Americans are, as the president himself said last night, war weary after 16 straight years of war and the U.S. military in at least half a dozen countries. But the deliverance from that state of affairs is going to come from someone other than the commander-in-chief.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: As many of the nation`s CEOs distance themselves from Donald Trump last week with carefully worded statements condemning racism and violent, CEO Ravin Gandhi, the founder of GMM Nonstick Coatings for cookwear wrote an unusually forthright op-ed for CNBC titled, "I tried on give Trump a chance, but after Charlottesville, it`s over" saying, quote, "I will not defend Trump even if the Dow hits 50,000, unemployment goes to 1 percent and GDP grows by 7 percent. Some issues transcend economics. And I will not, in good conscience, support a president who seems to hate Americans who don`t look like him."
The backlash was swift and full of hate and racist scorn. One email read, quote, "you`re angry for having been born with 50 percent negro blood in your veins. Embrace your heritage. Quit mouthing off."
Then there was a voicemail Gandhi received that he played for his clients and has since shared online. Here is just a sample.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
CALLER: Yes. This is for Ravin Gandhi. And I read his article on CNBC and (inaudible). And he tried to give Trump a chance. But after Charlottesville, he just can`t do it. Well then get your (EXPLETIVE DELETED) garbage and go back to India and sell it over there. Don`t tell us about Donald Trump. Don`t tell us about this country. And I can assure you, you`re not going to tell us which statues stand and which statues go. Go back to where the pigs live in India and go clean up your own (EXPLETIVE DELETED) country. It`s a filthy mess. You`re a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) pig and so is Nikki Haley.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
HAYES: Ravin Gandhi joins us now from Chicago close to where he grew up.
Why did you play that for folks?
RAVIN GANDHI, CEO, GMM NONSTICK COATINGS: Well, it came in literally at a work lunch. And it came into one of my sales guys who took me aside and played it. And I was so stunned that my clients saw that something was up, so I put his phone on speaker and then everyone was so agog that I thought you know what I think that this might be a good American moment to put it out there. And I can`t believe the response.
HAYES: What has been the response?
GANDHI: Oh, I mean, from the community it`s been unequivocally positive. And obviously I don`t read the quotes at the bottom of some of the articles online from the nutjobs like that lady. But I think the fact of the matter is, I was born in this country. I was raised in this country. I`ve built a business in this country. I`ve paid millions of dollars of taxes in this country. I`m raising my two kids in this country. I love this country. And the fact of the matter is I am just as American as anyone else. I think that`s not even up for debate.
And you can tell I`m a little bit fired up here, because just even hearing that message gets my blood kind of boiling. But it is very important for me honestly to communicate that I am very unequivocal about the fact that there`s no way that that nutjob lady is representative of all Trump voters. I have a tremendous amount of friends who are conservative Republicans, who are very good people. I just think that I am just, I was a little angry about the dog whistle that I thought was -- has been out there the last year. So, that`s kind of why I`m fired up.
HAYES: That`s a question, right? I mean, the question is what -- and I would agree with you, in a statistical sense that that is not broadly representative of Trump voters who would call and leave a voicemail like that. But it also seems to me that the backlash you got to writing that article, a lot of it really did center on your ethnicity. It was front and center in the response you got.
GANDHI: Absolutely. Newsweek figured out that that lady was the same lady who left a voicemail for the guy who wrote Trump`s book, The Art of the Deal, I think his name is Tony Schwartz. And if you listen to that message and you listen to mine, mine is far worse, because she goes on Indian this and Nikki Haley this. And it just boils my blood when someone thinks that because I look like the way do I and my last name is Gandhi, that I`m any less of an American.
And one of the reasons I`m going public with this is that you know I live a fantastic life. I`m the CEO of a company. My race is not an issue at all in my day to day life but that voicemail and many other messages demonstrate that there is a lot of people in this country, these insidious scum bags, who are fringe elements who are filled with hate. And I wanted to shine a light on the fact that I could actually be a victim also.
HAYES: You used the word insidious scumbags. Do you think the way the president in the way that he discussed Charlottesville, the way that he`s conducted himself, the language he`s chosen, has essentially given tacit approval or aid and comfort to those folks?
GANDHI: I was pretty darn insulted at the response. And honestly, if he would have left it at the statement on Monday, I would have said, you know what, it took 48 hours and I could tweet all I want about it, but I`m going to believe you at your word at the statement.
But what really made me go nonlinear is the press conference on Tuesday when I saw him go off the cuff. I wrote in my op-ed, Maya Angelou said when someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time. And I felt like I saw who this president was at that point.
HAYES: Do you -- believe them the first time. There`s a process that happens often with this president where he does things that violate social taboos, and not even political ones, just basic ones that people have about not making fun of people with different abilities. And then people forget it.
I guess the question is, what is the conversation with other CEOs, other people in the business community about that process? Are those folks going to engage in the forgetting again this time?
GANDHI: It is a conversation that I have all the time with peers of mine that are CEOs and many other people. And I truly hope that doesn`t happen.
Because time after time, like you said in 2016, it was, oh, he`s done, he`s done, he`s done and then wins again.
I want to speak right now to all of the good moderates. All the good moderate who voted for Mr. Trump because you`re Republican or because you didn`t take what he said seriously, and look at what happened. Steve Bannon is out last Friday.
And I really think that I want to inspire people. If you feel that you made a the wrong choice, speak out, because this president, when he sees people believe something, I think he`ll respond to it.
I want him to get the Republicans and the Democrats in a room and actually be bipartisan. We can change things in this country if we speak out and I`ll believe that until the day I die.
HAYES: All right. Ravin Gandhi, thank you for joining me.
Ahead, the widespread back lash after the Treasury Secretary`s wife posts this picture stepping off a government plane on the way to see some gold. That story coming up. And tonight`s Thing One, Thing Two starts right after the break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Thing One tonight. Anthony Scaramucci, former White House Communications Director who was fired after just ten days is still leaking White House information. His latest disclosure is that after New England Patriots visited the White House in April, the team owner Bob Kraft gave Donald Trump a Super Bowl ring with Trump`s name engraved on it.
Scaramucci spilled that detail on a message on Twitter to a Patriots fan group and a Patriots spokesperson confirmed it to USA Today, saying, the ring "mirrored what Patriots players and staff received following the Super Bowl victory."
That was reportedly the largest Super Bowl ring ever created with 283 diamonds. Even more than the previous Super Bowl ring that cost 36,000$ a pop.
Given the value of the ring, Trump will need to include the gift on his financial disclosure forms next year.
But beyond financial value, the ring also means he now has something specifically in common with Vladimir Putin.
That`s Thing Two in 60 seconds. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin both have New England Patriot Super Bowl rings from Bob Kraft, but only one of those presidents had to steal it.
Back in 2005, Patriot`s owner Bob Kraft met Putin while visiting Russia and as Kraft would confirm nearly a decade later, Putin asked to see Kraft`s Super Bowl ring and then never gave it back.
Kraft said he put his hand out to retrieve the ring but Putin pocketed it and walked out. According to Kraft, the Bush White House urged him to not go public with the story at the time, telling him, "It would really be in the best interests if you meant to give ring as a present."
Now 12 years later, Kraft hopes his pal Donald Trump can cut a deal with Putin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOB KRAFT, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS OWNER: I was willing to have one made with his name on it. Maybe we`ll have the new president bring it to him when he connects with him.
I do have an emotional attachment to that ring. And maybe, who knows? Maybe if we win Sunday, I can trade a new one with him, have one made up in the good spirit of friendship.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And President Trump could be the courier.
KRAFT: Right. We`ll have him do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: As a self-styled man of the people president prepares to speak to a rally of his hard core supporters in Phoenix, Arizona shortly, his spectacularly wealthy Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and his wife, actress Louise Linton are the stars of a national controversy sparked by this photo Linton posted yesterday on Instagram yesterday showing her and Mnuchin stepping off a government plane for a tour of the gold at Ft. Knox.
The photo is fabulous, but it was the caption that got people talking. I read from it here, "A great day trip to Kentucky." Followed by a string of hashtags highlighting the luxury brands Linton was sporting for the photo, #tomford sunnies, #hermesscarf, #valentinorockstudheels.
There was some reaction to this post including from commentator named Jenni Miller who responded simply, "Glad to see we could pay for your little getaway. #deplorable"
Linton, seen here dressed as Marie Antoinette in 2007 episode of CSI New York, responded with a comment worthy of the late queen of France, quote, "Adorable. Do you think the U.S. government paid for our honeymoon or personal travel? LOLOL. Have you given more to the economy than me than me and my husband? Either as an individual earner in taxes or in self sacrifice to your country? I`m pretty sure we paid more taxes towards our day trip than you did. Pretty sure the amount we sacrifice per year is a lot more than you would be able to sacrifice if the choice was yours. You`re adorably out of touch. Thanks for the passive aggressive, nasty comment. Your kids look very cute. Your life looks cute."
After the comments went viral, Linton deleted the post and made her account private. Then today a Treasury spokesperson told NBC News, "The Mnuchins are reimbursing the government for Linton`s travel."
Now Linton`s publicist has released an apology from the actress, her quote, "inappropriate and highly insensitive remarks."
When we return, Sam Seder and Erin Gloria Ryan are here to discuss the massive disconnect between the president`s base and his gilded cabinet.
That`s right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNI MILLER, TARGET OF LINTON`S RANT: When I read this and saw them getting off of the government plane on a government trip and she had tagged all of those brands, my first thought was, well isn`t it nice that, you know, all of us, the taxpayers can pay for them to go on this trip no matter where it is and then she can afford to buy anything that she wants and brag about it.
The bragging was the amazing part to me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That`s Jenni Miller whose comment on an Instagram post by Louise Linton, wife of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin prompted a condescending rant from Linton claiming that she and Mnuchin sacrifice much more than Miller does, with Linton adding quote, "Your life looks cute."
Joining me now, Erin Gloria Ryan, Senior Editor of The Daily Beast, whose piece today dubbed Linton quote, "The Real Housewife of the U.S. Treasury", and NSNBC contributor Sam Seder, host of The Majority Report.
Because of the internet, I generally just -- it`s something like too good to be true or too bad to be true and I think people post fake quotes all of the time. I assumed this was a send up of an out of touch person.
I could not believe it was real.
ERIN GLORIA RYAN, SENIOR EDITOR, THE DAILY BEAST: I think we`re getting to the end of satire, because there`s nothing else you can do to satirize what a clueless rich lady would do.
What`s really interesting about her is this isn`t the first time she`s done a cartoonish rich lady thing.
Last year she published a memoir about her gap year in Africa in 1999, which was revealed to be fake and so it had to be pulled from the shelves.
HAYES: Also produced a huge amount of backlash and outrage and she had to apologize for it.
RYAN: And she said that they called her Angel Hair and that she was in a war torn region. And there were all of these things that were not true at all. And she apologized and had to pull it off of the shelves. It was a viral moment.
It`s funny to me that she didn`t learn her lesson. This is viral in the exact same way as that first viral moment for her.
HAYES: There`s something about that photo and -- it gets to the central paradox, the guy in the gilded -- the billionaire in the gilded apartment as tribune of the working people, which has been since the beginning.
It`s going to happen tonight. He`ll be in Phoenix tonight with people who make $30,000 a year, and it seems to square to them, and people who are outside of that emotional connection find a hard time --
SAM SEDER, HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: That`s because you`re a coastal elite unlike Mnuchin and Linton.
Look, yes, I think if there were more people who would see Mnuchin and Linton -- I say Mnuchin too because this guy was known as the foreclosure king. And under a more rigorous regime, a fairly rigorous regime in the country he would have been prosecuted for what he did at One West. That`s just the bottom line.
And I don`t know if Trump voters see that deep into the administration. A lot of people don`t go around knowing the treasury secretary in any way.
Donald Trump, part of his appeal has been that the Republican party has said for a long time if you`re rich, you are moral. If you`re poor, there`s something culturally wrong with you.
When Donald Trump got up there and we would have these conversations during the primary, he would be up there and he had a certain righteousness because of his wealth. And it was divorced from the fact that he didn`t know --
HAYES: But that`s true, right, but there`s also the case that like if this was a Clinton person --
RYAN: Right.
HAYES: Who posted that, if an Obama daughter posted that --
RYAN: My first thought was imagine if Malia was wearing an Hermes scarf and posted something that was like "Hermes" and then responded to a mother of three from Oregon in a really condescending way.
HAYES: Of course, your life looks cute.
RYAN: I could not imagine the conniption that would happen from the right wing media, and even from center right people.
HAYES: Michelle Obama`s trip to Paris was a three-year scandal and the Secret Service is nearly bankrupt from all of the trips that Donald Trump has taken.
RYAN: If you`re going do something that would upset populist people, do it way harder and escape the gravitational pull.
HAYES: There`s a mean girl aspect to that post. Sort of shockingly indecent and mean.
RYAN: Especially for an actress that bad.
HAYES: But there`s something about it that that is the mode of the Trump - - the mode of the Trump --
RYAN: In my piece today I compared her to the real housewife and then at the end of my piece I realized she`s actually a little worse than a real housewife because real housewives have had to reckon with the racism that they faced on the show and they`ve been immediately confronted when they`ve done something. And she just wasn`t.
SEDER: Can I suggest that`s it`s not about about the money, that it`s about some type of cultural signifiers.
The thing that people like about Donald Trump is not that he understands the working class, it`s that he is not sophisticated in his ideas, and he`s laying it out there.
And the way that she`s responding on that Instagram is like what a high school girl who was not a nice high school girl --
RYAN: She`s 36 years old. She`s older than me. She`s 36.
HAYES: Also to me, the core thing here is shamelessness.
Like there`s something liberating about being shameless, and there`s liberating about watching a person who is supposed to be some sort of model or the apex American society, the president being shameless that makes you feel like it`s unburdening.
Like if everyone just acts shamelessly then I don`t have to feel guilty about it.
RYAN: Or the rules that he`s ignoring are the rules that are keeping me down. And if he can ignore them, so can I and I will be him.
HAYES: Erin Gloria Ryan and Sam Seder, thank you both form being here.
That is ALL IN for this evening.
"THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END
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